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When does a bone become a fossil?

15 February 2024

As organic material in a bone gets replaced by minerals over time, it becomes a fossil. But that can happen at different rates even within the same individual


Ancient humans hunted animals by throwing a stick like a boomerang

19 July 2023

Analysis of a wooden stick thought to be around 300,000 years old suggests it was designed to be thrown rotationally, rather than as a spear


Artistic artefacts are rewriting the timeline of ancient South America

16 June 2023

A slew of newly found artefacts in South America are revealing surprisingly familiar ways ancient people in the region expressed their creativity, including sculpted figurines, a communal drum and perhaps a previously unrecognised form of writing


Metin Eren at Kent State University demonstrates flintknapping to make stone tools

Ancient humans may have risked their lives making stone tools

2 June 2023

Modern flintknappers experience a wide variety of injuries that could have led to life-changing consequences or death for ancient humans making stone tools


Ancient bacteria genome reconstructed from Neanderthal tooth gunk

4 May 2023

Researchers pieced together the genomes of two unknown species of green sulphur bacteria from DNA fragments found in ancient calcified tooth plaque


DNA from 25,000-year-old tooth pendant reveals woman who wore it

3 May 2023

A new technique for extracting DNA from ancient artefacts without destroying them could give us unprecedented insights about the people who made or wore them


Ljubljana Marshes Wheel with axle (oldest wooden wheel yet discovered)

Can we ever know who invented the wheel?

14 April 2023

Some of the most important inventions – wheels, nets and the written word – have creators lost to time, even though their impact shaped the world we live in


Quaternary Science Reviews reporting that people at the Border Cave site may have roasted and eaten snails 170,000 years ago.

Ancient humans may have cooked and eaten snails 170,000 years ago

25 March 2023

Snail shell fragments found in a cave in South Africa appear to have been heated, providing the earliest evidence for humans eating snails


HHXJTH Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

The archaeologists recreating the secrets of prehistoric technology

14 March 2023

It has long been unclear how ancient people built a city of wood in the New Mexico desert far from any forests. By trying prehistoric building techniques themselves, archaeologists are working it out


Stone flakes made by monkeys cast doubt on ancient human 'tools'

10 March 2023

When macaques use stones to crack nuts, they accidentally create flakes that look like early human artefacts, raising questions about whether such objects were made deliberately


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